YES. As per my UPDATE to my original post, what happened is (as per https://github.com/termux/termux-app/discussions/4000):
a botched attempt to revive termux on Playstore. The “new” 0.122 now on Playstore is actually a mis-versioned regression from the current v0.118.0 on F-Droid. DO NOT update/install from Playstore, as the regression reintroduces several security bugs fixed in F-Droid’s v0.118.
The termux app is a really useful tool, at least for people comfortable with Linux, but is (as per warnings at F-Droid) somewhat out-of-date for modern Android (v11(?) or so, and later), and has run apparently afoul of Google’s Playstore policies.
Both u/formwall and the other termux developers are working to unconfuse the mess. Part of this will be an update on F-Droid soon…
It seems that whilst the “0.122” on Playstore is “compromised”, being a regression lacking several very important fixes in (F-Droid’s) v0.118.0, this situation is NEITHER a “hijack” NOR deliberately malicious.